Continuing his efforts to turn the Lower Ninth Ward into an environmentally sustainable, largely solar-powered and “high-powered neighborhood,” Brad Pitt and Co. (through his Make it Right Foundation) today opened the most technologically advanced playground in North America. 

Kellogg Park (so-named after the contributing Kellogg’s Corporate Citizenship Fund) features $500,000 worth of equipment, landscaping and donated manpower, with donations from architectural firms BNIM and John Williams, and the mid-century modernists at KOMPAN Inc. (I guess the days of tanbark, sawdust and rusty monkey bars are over.) 

Make it Right, along with the PlayGreen Initiative, developed an eco-friendly play space, with all the bells and whistles Pitt and Make it Right have integrated into their batch of sustainable homes — rest assured, they’re not replacing the Lower Ninth with an Ikea. The site is another example of the power of potential Pitt’s invested in the neighborhood’s future.

Tim Knowlton, Kellogg Company vice president of corporate social responsibility, dedicated the park to the kids, who, after three years, finally get a post-K playground — that just happens to be worth half a million dollars. 

In further New Orleans playground news, on Nov. 28, KaBOOM!’s Operation Playground completed a project at the Abramson Science & Technology Charter School with the help of more than 200 volunteers from the community and from the State Farm Bayou Classic. The next scheduled Operation Playground construction is Dec. 6 at Gentilly Terrace Elementary School.